Diocese seeks secrecy in priest sex-abuse cases

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport on Friday appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep secret more than 12,600 court documents from priest sex-abuse cases.

The 50-page writ, prepared by a New York law firm recently hired to handle the appeal, asks the court to overturn the state Supreme Court ruling that the files are public documents.

The appeal hinges on two legal issues: the state Supreme Court's definition of what constitutes a legal document and the church's contention that its First Amendment rights would be violated by unsealing documents that church officials produced with the understanding that they would be secret forever.

There are hundreds of petitions submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court each year. The nine justices normally decide to hear only a fraction of those cases. A decision on whether to take up the Bridgeport case likely won't be made until the fall.

In the meantime, the church has asked the full court to keep the documents in question sealed until the justices decide whether to take up the case. Earlier this week, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg denied that request. At that time, the diocese said it hadn't given up in its long fight to keep more the documents sealed, releasing a statement that it was "disappointed" by Ginsburg's ruling but "intends to proceed with its announced determination to ask the full U.S. Supreme Court to review the important constitutional issues that this case presents."

Among the court documents the diocese is striving to keep sealed are three depositions by then-Bishop Edward Egan, who was in charge of the Bridgeport Diocese when most of the lawsuits against priests under his control were filed and adjudicated. Egan recently retired as the archbishop of New York.

Most of the lawsuits were filed in the mid-1990s. They were settled in 2001 by the church for undisclosed amounts with the agreement that the settlements and the documents remain sealed forever. Four newspapers, including the Hartford Courant, filed a lawsuit to have the documents unsealed in 2002 when it was discovered that they had not been destroyed.

The court ruled that all but 15 documents in the 23 separate files are public records. Those 15 documents, at least two of which are depositions, were not submitted as legal documents and will remain sealed, the court ruled.